The present invention relates to a stripline antenna. More particularly, it relates to a stripline antenna of a long electric length with a modulated phase velocity of a guided wave, operating in a leaky-wave mode.
Antennas of the above mentioned general type are known in the art. The exisiting stripline antennas demonstrate constancy of bandwidth by gain (electrical length) product. The known stripline antennas are generally of two types, namely: short in terms of wavelength but wideband flat patch antennas, and electrically long but using standing wave mode of operation and therefore narrow-band antennas. The antennas of both these types usually require extensive experimentation when being developed. This is partially an explanation of the reason why it is extremely difficult to make them up into a big aperture antenna array.